Decorating Fever is at an All-Time High

This is the first summer in nearly twelve years that I have been able to fully unpack from all my previous moves. Summertimes have usually been spent working, babysitting or packing for yet another move.  Although I'm not there yet, I am progressing at a much faster rate than ever before, possibly because my child is now almost twelve and fairly self-sufficient.

With all that unpacking comes the discovery of things that I haven't seen in years, or things that matched the decor four houses ago. I found a recipe card holder that Weston bought for me at a thrift store when he was small.

Cute in its day, it no longer matched anything in my kitchen. See that lovely shade of lavender paint lurking in the background? Heh heh heh...

I wasn't chuckling for long. Weston saw the paint and brush and said, "Are you going to paint that thing I gave you?  I thought you liked it?"  

I tried to explain that I do like it and now it's time for a new color. He got a little choked up. "Can you at least not paint the bears?"

Not wanting to be the subject of future discussions at Christmas for the rest of my life, ("Yeah, I remember the time Mom painted over that beautiful recipe card holder I gave her. I saved up for weeks to get her something nice. I thought she would like it but...") I decided a compromise was in order.

Here's the side I re-vamped:

Now we are both happy. I even painted some clothespins the same color so that I can use them as refrigerator magnets. (You really don't throw away those business magnets you get in the mail, do you?)

One of the advantages of having  this guy

for a neighbor, is that he leaves beautiful gifts for us in our yard

which I am all too happy to use as decorative pieces in my house.

The office in our new home has walls that are a lovely shade of army green. Since my son's new room is decorated in lime green, the camouflage patterned curtains I sewed for him two years ago no longer match. However, they fit in quite nicely with the manly walls in the office. 

For Father's Day, I went to Wordle and made Computer Geek a piece of art using the words of a quote by his favorite old guy, Patrick Henry.  (If you ever have to come up with a gift on the fly, that is the website to go to. You can take any words you want---best friend names, quotes, a person's interests--- and submit them to make a cute gift. If you want one word to appear larger than the others, just type it in more frequently.This is not to say I made his gift at the last minute if CG is reading this.) You can even choose your color scheme, so I picked colors that matched the walls and curtains.

The last thing I made involves a piece of scrap lumber, some spray paint (hallelujah!) and some stickers. I wanted to make something that would look nice through the month of July since we would be celebrating both the Fourth of July and Pioneer Day (big party day in Utah.)

I spray painted the hunk of lumber an almond color. I got some stickers at Walmart and adhered them where I wanted. I also went to Microsoft Word and printed out two black stars. I Mod Podged over the top for protection.  

It now sits on top of my wood-burning stove. I was happy that the wood had some natural cracks and a nail in it. Makes it look more rustic. Cheap to make. Cheap cheap. That's my middle name.

Off to do some more unpacking!  Yee haw!